Gordon Lightfoot was very open about not wanting to perform the song that gave him his big break. Most singers stand by their hits, but Lightfoot had outmatured the song that made him.
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In 1966, Gordon Lightfoot released "For Lovin' Me." A song about never hanging around the same woman, and having "a hundred" more ladies waiting around for him. And the moment the woman gets over the heartbreak, he might pay her a visit once more.
It's the sort of 'ladies man' tune that has remained popular throughout the genres, but despite it being a breakout hit for Lightfoot, the lyrics didn't age well for him.
In an interview with Vanity Fair, he spoke candidly about how the song no longer sits well with him. When the interviewer brought up the hit, he simply said, "Oh my goodness, yeah. That's a bad one."
The interviewer asked him why he'd since rejected the song. From his (and likely most others') perspective, the song comes across as a cowboy boasting about the women he's been with.
But Gordon Lightfoot sees it as far too misogynistic.
Gordon Lightfoot Slammed "For Lovin' Me"
"I was married at the time, and it was a damn poor song to write when you're married to somebody," he said.
"I learned a lesson from that, because after I sang that song for a while, I asked myself, What am I saying?! Even long after I was divorced and separated and she'd gone her way and I'd gone mine, I would sing this song and think, Geez. How did you she ever put up with this?! I stopped singing it."
He further explained how mean the song was, "You're telling these people how mean you're gonna be. Just when they've gotten over you, you're gonna show up at their front doorstep again, which really is what the song says."
Ultimately, he chose not to sing the song anymore, as he didn't think it was one of his best. "No, I don't need to sing that [anymore]," he laughed. "I've got the best, the cream of the crop right now, thank you. That's not cream of the crop. I just do the cream-of-the-crop songs in my show. We just bowl them over; they love us. It just keeps getting better."
